Hello and Welcome to the May 2024 east area blog.
I wanted to use this blog as an opportunity to highlight some of the key work that has been undertaken in recent weeks in the East area and promote some key initiatives at Table Tennis England that people in the area potentially may wish to engage with:
Community Table Tennis Partnerships
During April and early May, positive conversations were held with both Active Norfolk and Be Active (Bedfordshire & Luton) in regards to determining specific projects that could be implemented as part of the each respective Community Table Tennis Partnership. I’m happy to announce that following on from these conversations, projects have been identified in both areas and work is already underway to implement these projects across the forthcoming year, please stay tuned for progress updates on these in due course.
Visits To Stilton & Luton
On Tuesday 16th April, I, alongside, Jade (our Data and Insight Executive) visited Stilton Table Tennis Club in Cambridgeshire to collect participant footage and feedback to create a case study around table tennis is having a beneficial effect on the physical and mental health of the club’s participants. A big thank you to Steve Ambler for his hospitality. In addition to this, I also visited Chidi Umeano and Enitan Kane in Luton on the evening of Wednesday 10th April to visit the new Over 50s Black Men Forum session that has been running since February. It was great to see how far the session has come in such a short period of time and I’m looking forward to working with Chidi and Enitan moving forwards to develop further provision across the East area.
Women and Girls Ambassador Programme 2024-25
Following the Women and Girls event held at the Great Northern Ping Hub on 8th March (IWD), which saw 19 participants attend. A Women and Girls Ambassador programme has been launched. The programme has been running since 2019 and has been part of initiatives aiming to address the gender imbalance in Table Tennis. In 2024, the Women and Girls Ambassador programme hopes to build on the previous year’s successes, bringing together a diverse group of individuals to raise the visibility and amplify the voice of women and girls existing and new to the sport. For more information and how to get involved, please see the link opposite: www.tabletennisengland.co.uk/about-us/equality-and-diversity/women-and-girls/women-girls-ambassadors/
As ever, my door is always open to see how we can develop table tennis across the east region so please feel free to get in touch with me and we can grab some time to have a chat.
Yours in Table Tennis
Chris
